So Much Depends on the Recruiter

 

He’s a former Catholic who supports abortion rights; he has been a hunter since he was 12 but advocates gun-safety legislation. He’s a decorated warrior who’s wary of war; and perhaps most important, he sympathizes with some of Trump’s supporters but thinks the president threatens American democracy.

--Description of Rep. Jason Crow (Colo., 6th CD) 

Representative Crow makes a strong impression. He can flat-out stare down a camera. He projects granite -- integrity that ain't messing around, a high intelligence, a b.s. detection system unimpressed by status, wealth, or pure cussedness. Crow earned that mensch character growing up in a working-class family. His grandfather was a bricklayer. Jason himself did construction to afford college, joined the National Guard and ROTC programs for the same reason -- financial need. But we know, intelligence will out! 

His service in the National Guard moved to active duty as a private after 9/11. He quickly became an officer, a paratrooper, and a Ranger — "perhaps the pinnacle of the U.S. Army," said David Ignatius, who knows Crow well. Crow was deployed to Iraq in 2003 with the fabled 82nd Airborne Division. There's no denying the congressman's smarts, or his gumption. Ignatius:

After Iraq, Crow joined the Joint Special Operations Command, perhaps the nation’s most elite combat team, composed of Army Rangers and Delta Force operators and Navy SEALs. He deployed with JSOC twice to Afghanistan as a member of the Joint Strike Force assigned to capture or kill “high-value targets” in al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Much of his work involved intelligence missions against the Haqqani network along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

After his service in the Army, he went to law school in Denver, and was heavily recruited by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) to run for Congress in Colorado's 6th Congressional District, a slice of real estate that had never before elected a Democrat. He rose to prominence in the House as quickly as he had in the Army. He was named a House manager for Trump's first impeachment, and I remember his manner on TV as riveting. Early this year Crow was named a co-chair of the DCCC's candidate recruitment, in charge of making the Blue Wave of 2026. I can't imagine a better man for that job.

Crow showed off his first class of recruits recently at a training session in Washington: "The gathering ... was a snapshot of how Crow thinks the party can return to its working-class, pro-defense roots — while also mobilizing young voters seeking change. The group ... included a farmer, a part-time waitress, an emergency room doctor and a half-dozen veterans." Crow stood before them dressed in jeans, boots, and an open-necked shirt. He urged them to campaign next year as if they were running for mayor: "Be local, be authentic, don’t listen too much to campaign consultants, and be ready to separate from an often-unpopular national Democratic Party brand." (We all have our own lists of shit we wish never to hear from another Democratic candidate. Fill in the blanks yosef.)

Crow told Ernest Luning at Colorado Politics how brutally honest he was when pitching a run to a possible candidate: "Listen, this is not going to be easy. This is going to be really hard. It might be one of the hardest things you’ve ever done. But you know, I’m not asking you to storm the beaches of Normandy for our country. I’m asking you to step up and throw your hat in the ring for a race. Your country needs you.”